


invictus (undefeated)

by Caevon



Category: Twosetviolin, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29622078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caevon/pseuds/Caevon
Summary: They meet for the first time when Eddy is thirteen and Brett is fourteen, on a Friday evening. Eddy thinks, naively, that maybe they'll be best friends forever, but Brett becomes a violinist and Eddy doesn't; they've left each other behind, and their careers take them across the world to success and fame, two parallel lines always moving forward but never meeting.Until they do again.AU where Eddy chooses to go to medical school instead (or more accurately, his parents pressure him).
Relationships: Eddy Chen & Brett Yang, Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	invictus (undefeated)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is fiction, and is not meant to reflect or represent reality in any way.

At night, when the world is dark and there is nothing other than the thoughts in his own head, Eddy dreams of being a musician, playing the violin and working in a symphony. He allows his imagination to run free and wonders what it would have been like to follow Brett to the conservatory, to follow his passion and his own path and not the one his parents set for him. Sometimes he mourns the people and places he’s left behind—these are the things that money can’t buy.

But he’s successful now, isn’t he? Everything his parents wanted him to be. He’s travelled the world giving lectures and press conferences talking about his research. Everything he writes is published in papers like the _New England Journal of Medicine_ and _The Lancet_ and he’s pretty sure he’s been the idol of almost every medical student he’s met. _So young,_ they said, _barely even thirty yet he’s done more than all the old men and women out there. He’s a prodigy._

If only he’d been a violin prodigy too, he wouldn’t be doing this.

Research is about problem-solving, logic (which he prides himself on), perseverance, and a little bit of luck. He supposes that his luck is what those before him didn’t quite have. Hell, Eddy’s earned enough money from this that he could’ve quit work already and lived comfortably for several lifetimes and his mother asks him sometimes why he hasn’t quit yet, but he tells her that maybe, just maybe, he’s found a purpose greater than himself. Even after all these years, she doesn’t quite understand that there are things money can’t buy.

This life—it doesn’t make him unhappy. He is content with how the world moves on for him, though he gets more and more annoyed every year with the travelling and the lecturing, but that doesn’t mean he’s _happy_. Some days he likes to bring out the violin from its old case, check for bow bugs, and _play_ —sometimes Sibelius, sometimes Tchaikovsky, sometimes the first violin part of Navarra. The dance sounds lonely; there is no partner and the empty space is filled with longing, and Eddy wonders how at some point a Queen Elisabeth winner like Brett had always played second violin to him. Brett Yang’s latest Bach album has been sitting on his coffee table for the past week, as a reminder of what Eddy left behind, or maybe it was Eddy who Brett left behind. He doesn’t quite know the difference. Perhaps, he thinks, they left each other in the dust, two parallel lines on their way to success, glory, and fame but never meeting, never intersecting.

He gets sad thinking about it, so in the mornings he washes down his childhood dreams with a cup of black coffee and pretends everything’s alright, because really, everything _is_ alright and the life he has now isn’t so bad. It’s bearable, so he lives with it.

When Eddy’s thirty-one, he decides he needs a break. He’s getting tired of travelling every month to speak at some random university or going to some conference or getting interviewed. He walks into the lab one day and says, “I need a break” and one of his co-workers shrugs and says “It’s about time you took one.” He doesn’t think he’s had a single day to relax since he was eighteen or nineteen. It’s been a decade of study, work, research, and exams, and he thinks that with all the awards and nominations he’s gotten and the research he does, he deserves a break.

 _You overwork yourself; you need some time to yourself, take a break_ , his peers tell him, have told him since he was in high school, juggling academics with violin competitions. They agree on six months of paid leave, which Eddy thinks is ridiculous because he doesn’t want that much time and at the ripe old age of thirty-one, he probably has millions in the bank at this point from all the shit he’s done, but they force him anyways.

That evening, almost at the exact minute he hangs his coat up on the wall, he gets a call. The name on the screen is heart-wrenchingly familiar— _Brett Yang_ hasn’t called in a while, has he? They haven’t done a very good job of keeping in touch for so-called best friends. Life has kept them busy, Eddy supposes.

“Hey, Eddy,” the voice on the other end of the line says, and before Eddy can even return the greeting, Brett continues. “I’m moving to Sydney.”

The silence is deafening; it’s like Brett has just dropped a bomb on him without any warning. Eddy stares blankly at the wall, all greetings and _how’s your life been_ questions lost as he tries to understand. “Moving? I thought you haven’t really lived anywhere for years, man.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Brett says dismissively. “I signed a one-season contract with the SSO to play with them as concertmaster since the last one retired and told my tour manager I’m taking a break from this bullshit. If I have to do another 150-concert series over the span of a year again I think I might smash my violin.”

“Oh.” Eddy fumbles over words in his head stupidly, remembering the last time Brett had called to complain that he was doing 150 concerts over 365 days— _fuck_ , that was over a year ago. “You’re taking a break too.”

“Too?” Brett sounds confused. “From the lab stuff? I thought you liked it, Eddy.”

Eddy smiles, a little bittersweet. “I haven’t enjoyed that in years,” he admits. “I guess we haven’t been talking as much. But I’ve been burnt out for a long time, and it gets so repetitive sometimes. And I hate the travelling.”

“Comes with being famous,” Brett quips. “You and me both. I’d like to have somewhere to call home for a bit, I think. And the concertmaster position might be good for ensemble experience.”

There’s an awkward silence, then Eddy says, “When does the SSO season start? I haven’t watched one of their concerts in thirteen years.”

Eddy can almost envision the shocked look on Brett’s face as he hears a noise halfway between a wince and a muffled shout. “ _Thirteen_ years, Eddy?! Of living in Sydney and you haven’t gone to a single—”

“I’ve been busy, hey,” Eddy says softly. “Just like you. We haven’t even seen each other since that summer…” His throat tightens. _Stop being so emotional, Eddy._ He doesn’t really know if he can go on without crying. Brett doesn’t need to hear it. Brett probably doesn’t even consider him as a best friend anymore.

He hears Brett sighing into the phone, deflating. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. The season starts in two weeks and I don’t even have a place to live in yet, so I was wondering if you know anyone who can refer me to a unit or something near the Opera House—”

“You can stay with me.” Eddy’s mouth opens before he’s really even thought about it, and immediately rebukes himself, but he’s made his bed so now he has to lie in it. And well, _fuck_ because he’s a scientist and doctor and he should know to use his brain and think things through before he does them. “My house is goddamn huge, man, and I don’t even live in it for half the year. Walking distance from the Opera House too. You can stay free of charge in return for the company, I guess—until you find your own place, that is.”

Brett sounds amused. “No girlfriend living with you, Eddy? Shocking.”

Eddy tries not to grimace at the question. “Nah,” he says, attempting to make it sound indifferent. “It’s always just been me.”

“Well then,” says Brett, “who am I to say no to that? It’ll be just like old times.”

To say that Eddy’s nervous about picking up Brett from the airport a week later is an understatement. They haven’t seen each other since he was eighteen and Brett was nineteen, and he’s a realist (which comes from being a man of science) so he understands that time has changed them both and it might be like being with a stranger again. He remembers that last time in his bedroom, when Brett asked him if he was coming to the con, begged him even, and Eddy had almost cried and said _I wanted to but I can’t_ , and how they’d played together one last time—

_No, Eddy. Not now._

Brett’s a soloist now, he reminds himself. He’d followed Brett on the news and on the Internet for the first few years and read the critics’ comments, all raving about his performance in the final round of the Queen Elisabeth. As someone who’d never been particularly prolific in competitions previously, the fact that a nobody from an unknown music school in Australia made it so far into the competition was shocking in itself, let alone having the nobody take home the first prize.

Eddy still remembers one of the interviews he watched on YouTube. “Tell us about your life in university,” the interviewer said, off-screen. “How did you suddenly improve your playing within the span of a few years and make it to the finals?” Brett shrugged. “I lost something close to me before my second year,” he said vaguely. “I felt empty… so I just threw myself into practicing and trying to let the music make me feel better, and here I am, I guess.” Eddy’s pretty sure he knows what that comment is about.

Brett Yang hasn’t changed much physically when Eddy sees him. He’s still wearing glasses, slightly better-looking than the wire frames he’d had in high school, and his hair is less of a mess. Brett’s unmistakable with the violin case hanging off his shoulder and the bright albeit tired smile he wears on his face. Eddy notices that he’s way taller than Brett is now, and it feels a bit awkward, but Brett’s smile warms him up and he smiles back.

“Hey,” says Eddy, and Brett responds by enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug.

The first few days are awkward. Brett marvels at Eddy’s house and calls it way too neat and organized; the guest room Eddy’s prepared for Brett is a disjointed mess by the second day, which Eddy has expected of course. They still fit together, awkwardly but it still works, and Eddy’s glad that their friendship hasn’t completely fallen apart over a decade of separation.

“It’s like riding a bike,” Brett comments one day. “You never really forget how to do it, and if you don’t do it for a long time it takes some time to get used to again, but you always have that memory with you. Right?”

Sometimes they feel like two violists in an orchestra, not really in tune nor are they in time. Eddy’s not used to having another presence in his home—it’s not unwelcome, but it is new—and he’s also not used to being on a break. Neither is Brett, he assumes, because Brett practices a few hours a day then ends up wandering the house aimlessly, exploring Eddy’s expansive library consisting of medical books and journals and the occasional shady printed IMSLP score from years ago.

The night before Brett’s first rehearsal with the SSO is the first time Eddy hears him play the Tchaikovsky in-person in the last thirteen years. He’s attacking a particular scale in the first movement, and Eddy can feel the frustration radiating off his old friend, so he knocks on the door of the music room and lets himself in. “It sounds flawless already,” Eddy says. “I don’t know why you’re working on it so hard.

Brett shakes his head. “Bad tone,” he says, even though Eddy thinks there’s nothing wrong with his tone at all. But again, Brett’s one of the top violinists in the world now, and who’s Eddy to judge? Brett goes back to attacking the passage with vigor and a small amount of anger.

“Play the concerto for me instead,” Eddy suggests. It’s been too long, after all. “Stop doing that.”

“I _am_ playing the concerto.”

“I mean run the whole thing through. Actually play it. Stop being this aggressive towards a scale; it’s just going to make it worse if you’re so frustrated right now. I haven’t heard this in forever, anyway.”

Brett eyes the CD case with “Brett Yang: Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto” sitting on the piano lid. “That’s my recording from a while ago,” he says. “Didn’t you listen to it? I was pretty proud of that one.”

“Yeah,” Eddy replies. “But it’s not the same as hearing you here, you know.”

The silence is awkward, like an orchestra who’s lost their place in the music and doesn’t really know where the conductor is or what they’re supposed to do, and Brett quietly reaches for his case to rosin his bow.

“You know,” says Brett suddenly, lips turning upwards, “I was teaching in Barcelona a few weeks ago. One of the students there asked me as a joke if anyone with perfect pitch ever made fun of me.”

Eddy can’t help but laugh. “And what did you say, huh?”

Brett grins. “I told her I used to have my friend tune my violin for me because he had perfect pitch.” He snickers. “And how he’d never shut up when some noise or another played— _that’s an F, Brett, oh the car horn was a B-flat_ —and he always called me out when I was out of tune.”

Eddy sits back as Brett tunes his violin—on his own, now—and prepares himself for the beginning of the Tchaikovsky. It’s been over a decade since they played for each other like this, in the comfort of their own bedrooms, exchanging warm smiles and jokes and picking apart each other’s playing. _You’re out of tune_ , Eddy would say, _that last chord_ , and Brett would groan and tell him to fuck off _Mr. Perfect Pitch_ _would you stop rubbing it in my face?_ The warmth of the melody seeps into his skin and down into his bones like it used to, washing over him like sunshine on a cold winter day.

When Brett finishes, Eddy has almost forgotten how to think. They’ve both been so busy he’s never had time to go to one of Brett’s concerts to hear him live and he hasn’t heard him in-person since he was eighteen. He’s improved— _obviously,_ his brain adds—and his music is perfection in its purest form, every note clear and in tune, and the passion and emotion make Eddy want to cry. Maybe he’s already cried sometime in the past fifteen minutes; he can’t really tell.

Brett doesn’t seem to notice. He just smiles, obliviously, and asks, “Will you play Sibelius for me?”

“You want me,” he says, throat dry, “to play after _that_?”

Brett shrugs casually. “I want to hear your Sibelius. You asked me for my Tchaikovsky, after all. You owe me one.” There is an amused glint in his eyes that has never quite abandoned him even after a decade, and Eddy sees the energy bubbling underneath.

“Alright,” Eddy acquiesces. “Just don’t make fun of me. I haven’t played in two weeks.”

“I won’t.” It’s sincere.

When Eddy takes out his own violin, looking very much like one of those sixty-dollar scam instruments next to Brett’s Stradivarius, Brett reaches his hand out tentatively to brush at the dark wood. “You still have two fine tuners,” he notes.

“Shut up.”

Eddy’s pretty sure he’s going to have a terrible case of shaky bow on the first G of the melody, in front of _Brett Yang_ , one of the best violinists in the world, but he lets himself breathe, thinks of being eighteen again when Brett visits him over the summer and they play for each other one last time before their paths split and he goes to medical school instead of following—and Eddy lets go. 

Sibelius is as cold as Tchaikovsky is warm, a reminder of how different they’ve become and how their years and experiences have changed them. It reflects on their personalities, Eddy thinks dimly, cold logic and reasoning of a scientist and the warmth and emotion of a violinist. It’s ironic, almost. Everything has changed between them and yet nothing has; Eddy remembers the shit viola he mailed to the hotel Brett was staying at for his twenty-sixth birthday and how Brett called him after he got it, _Eddy what the fuck the bridge is flat and it’s terrible,_ and maybe the distance between them has really never been that big. He lets the notes run under his fingers, familiar but unfamiliar and some horribly out of tune, and throws his heart and soul into the piece anyways like he watched Brett playing Tchaikovsky.

When Eddy finishes, Brett is staring at him, eyes unreadable, and Eddy fears he’s fucked up terribly in front of a world-class concert violinist. “Well,” he begins uncertainly, “I _did_ tell you I barely play and the last time was two weeks ago…”

Brett shakes his head. “The technique wasn’t the best,” he admits, “you’re out of tune sometimes and the more difficult runs are a bit unclear. But the music was all _you,_ and God I missed that. I think I needed to hear that.”

“To feel better about your own playing?”

“No.” Brett pauses, like he’s searching for words. “I’ve performed Sibelius so many times and every time before I went onstage, I found myself trying to remember what you sounded like when you played it back in high school. You have this way of playing—I don’t know—but it’s like magic, Eddy. This piece is _yours,_ always has been, and I think I needed that inspiration.”

They play Navarra that night too. “I played the second part alone sometimes,” Brett informs him matter-of-factly, “looked for someone else I could perform it with too. But I never could because the only person who was able to lead so beautifully was you.” They fit in each other’s empty spaces, Brett gently accommodating the gap in their skill level that’s present now, and it’s a little awkward sometimes but it’s never really changed as much as Eddy thought it would have. They still know each other the way they did thirteen years ago deep down, the way the other plays and the way they make the music move together, and they let Sarasate’s happiness carry them away.

“Wow,” Brett breathes after they finish, the last notes ringing triumphant in Eddy’s too-large living room, and sets his violin down on the back of the grand piano. “That was nice. Makes me wonder if we would have become greater if we stayed together. You know.”

First place winner of the Queen Elisabeth and a world-renowned medical researcher with groundbreaking discoveries— Eddy wonders sometimes if they would have held each other back and prevented each other from becoming great. In another world, maybe they would have been too busy trying to go viral on YouTube (a fleeting high school idea) rather than practicing for the Queen Elisabeth or researching during medical school, but at least they would have been _together._ He thinks that maybe going viral and spending a lifetime creating content would have been preferable to _this_ , where Brett is tired from pressure, concerts, and changing time zones and Eddy would rather become a professional violist than give another guest lecture or go to another press conference, but they have to work with what they have now and make the best of it.

“Yeah,” says Eddy. “I think we might have been greater together. But it’s too late for regrets, isn’t it?”

_The most important thing in life is finding a purpose greater than yourself. Don’t you think we’ve both already found it?_

* * *

_They meet for the first time when Eddy is thirteen and Brett is fourteen, on a Friday evening, tired from school and homework but still_ there. _Eddy’s in seventh grade and he is in eighth. They’re both at math tutoring because of their strict Asian parents and would much rather be elsewhere and they both play violin._

_“Do you play the violin?”_

_“Yeah, I do. What grade are you in?”_

_They part ways that night when they leave for home, but the next morning Eddy sees the boy from math tutoring at orchestra rehearsal. It’s only eight thirty in the morning, too early to be up on a Saturday, and they’re both the youngest there that day, confused and alone next to the men and women nearly in their twenties. Friendship has never come so fast and easy to them—maybe, thinks Eddy, this was meant to be._

_It’s hard not to be impressed by someone like Brett, who’s outgoing and smart and funny and can win the whole room over with just a smile and a few words. Eddy wonders what Brett sees in him sometimes; after all, Eddy is younger and doesn’t like to talk and he seems small both physically and intellectually next to Brett. But they come together anyway, two pieces of a puzzle, fitting perfectly because it almost seems like they were made for each other._

_The next years fly by too quickly for comfort. Eddy forgets his violin at the airport once and has to live with Brett’s loud guffaws for the rest of high school. He likes to make fun of how Brett completely and utterly fucked up the first chord of the Bach a minor onstage, and Brett shuts up. They settle into this easy routine of orchestra rehearsals, competitions, and quartet performances and learning Sarasate’s Navarra, stolen moments at the bubble tea shop before their parents tell them to go home and study, phone calls to each other and late-night texts when they can’t sleep._

_Then sooner or later, it comes. Brett calls Eddy at eleven at night one spring day. “I got into the con!” he says, jubilant. “I’m going to music uni, Eddy, this is so cool—"_

_They talk with each other on the phone into the dead of night about their hopes and dreams for the future. Brett mentions his mother’s reaction to his application for music uni and wheezes loudly while imitating her words. “She made me study music all my childhood,” Brett says, laughing, “and now she’s mad that I went and applied for music uni!” And then he pauses, and asks the question that Eddy’s hoping Brett wouldn’t ask._

_“You’ll come next year, won’t you?”_

_Eddy falters. “Brett,” he whispers. “I want to. But my parents—Belle already became a musician. I don’t want to disappoint them, I don’t, but I love music—”_

_“It’s okay,” says Brett, always kind, always willing to listen. “I understand.”_

_The next year rolls around, and when Brett stops by Eddy’s house after his last day of his uni first year, he asks, “Will you come to music school next year?”_

_They both know the answer. Eddy doesn’t need to respond, but he says it anyway. “I wanted to.”_

_They play together for the last time that night, performing concertos and solo works and finishing with Navarra. Eddy makes fun of Brett’s pitch and Brett says_ well at least I didn’t forget my violin. _They both cry when they part; Brett’s spending his summer studying in Italy and Eddy’s staying in Australia, preparing for medical school (the exam for which he passed with flying colours)._

_“We’ll keep in touch, yeah?” says Brett, as he stands in the doorway of Eddy’s house._

_“Of course.” Eddy nods._

_They do keep in touch for the first few years. Brett calls when he makes it into the first round of the Queen Elisabeth and every round after, with Eddy watching on live stream of course, and Eddy calls when he consistently is top of his class and an accidental discovery in the lab suddenly earns him a nomination for a Nobel Prize in Physiology. Brett wins the Queen Elisabeth and Eddy doesn’t win the Nobel Prize because they think he’s too young and inexperienced, but both launch their careers into the sky._

_Things fall apart, as the passage of time always causes; they grow busy with their lives, travelling the world but never meeting after the last stolen day in Eddy’s house. Eddy’s too busy giving lectures to university students probably ten years older than he is and spending all his free hours in the lab, where groundbreaking discovery after discovery (pure luck, Eddy thinks) turns him into an internationally-renowned medical researcher and wins him a Nobel Prize at the age of 30, the youngest Physiology winner in history. Eddy ends up working with the likes of Elizabeth Blackburn and James Watson, who think he’s a genius—and Eddy’s parents are very proud of his achievements, for sure. Brett’s too busy touring the world and performing in concerts with orchestras he’d only dreamed of as a teenager, taking home a second prize at the Tchaikovsky Violin Competition sometime on the way. He gives masterclasses to people older than he is at places like Curtis and Julliard, and at some point, he decides to start a comedy YouTube channel for fun._

_This is how life is and this is how it moves on. They grow up and grow apart, their careers taking them to opposite ends of the world, both trying to find a purpose greater than themselves and succeeding, maybe, but not really. It’s the kind of life neither of them would be sad about living for the rest of their time, but they both miss something. Eddy remembers music and violin with pain and longing but he goes to work every day determined to do his best, and Brett remembers a friend he left behind but performs anyway trying not to think of how lonely it is to travel the world alone._

_But it’s okay. They’re both okay, it’s bearable, and so they live with it._

_Until they don’t._

* * *

One day, when Brett comes home from rehearsal to Eddy still working on the first draft of a memoir his publisher has been dying for him to write (Eddy still hasn’t even given it a good title and is debating on whether to call it _I Fucked Up_ or _I Regret Everything_ ), he tells Eddy that he’s going to need to use Eddy’s music room for filming.

“Filming?” asks Eddy, slightly confused, wondering why Brett isn’t going to a studio to do that sort of thing, then he remembers. “Oh. Your YouTube channel? Sure, go ahead, I’ll be quiet and all that and let me know if you need anything.” He turns back to his notebook.

“Yeah,” says Brett. “Actually, I was wondering if you want to be in one of my videos…”

Eddy turns back to Brett, slightly intrigued. “And what do you want me to do?”

Brett shrugs. “I was thinking charades stuff,” he says. “The ones we used to do for fun back then. It’s been just me on my channel for years, mate. I look so lonely.”

And, well, Eddy can’t really argue with that, can he?

The video starts off simple enough. Brett has around five hundred thousand subscribers—not _that_ much, really, but still pretty good. They’re all classical music lovers who like that Brett, still relatively young, is relatable and funny. “This is my friend, Eddy,” says Brett, “from high school. Some of you may recognize him as Dr. Edward Chen, who won a Nobel Prize several years ago in Phys- Physi—”

“Physiology,” Eddy says, grinning, and Brett laughs.

They fall into banter that’s familiar and easy. Brett acts out composers and Eddy tries to guess them, failing to understand half of it and acing the other. “I’m rusty,” he protests. “I haven’t studied theory in thirteen years, bro.” 

Brett just laughs, again, light and carefree. “You didn’t do half bad.”

Eddy finds that Brett asks him more and more often to be in his videos and the fans are getting excited about the constant second figure that’s in Brett’s videos now. At some point, Brett jokes that he should rename his channel to Brett Yang & Eddy Chen and Eddy says no, that’s fucking lame and it’s your channel anyway, once your season is over and I’m back to work I won’t be able to be in your videos anymore, but something about saying that makes his chest feel tight and he can see Brett feels the same.

At some point, Eddy offers to do the video editing instead of Brett, because frankly Brett is too busy practicing to do it and Eddy would probably do a better job anyway. “I had to edit a whole-ass documentary for a project in uni,” says Eddy. “I know how this works. Let me do it.”

The days go on; Brett goes to rehearsal Monday through Friday and comes home to talk about the conductors and the music. “Williamson was so fucking shit, dude,” he says sometimes, and other times he raves about how good rehearsal was or rants about how the maestro kept them overtime for an entire hour. Eddy listens to everything Brett says, drinks every word in. Brett asks Eddy why he’s still writing and working if he’s technically taking a vacation, and Eddy says he’d like to stay productive and talks about what he’s been working on, and Brett always listens with intrigue. The videos continue; the two of them play games, react to shows, talk about their lives in front of the camera, until one day Brett’s had enough.

“Have you ever thought about it,” he murmurs hesitantly, “maybe making this… YouTube thing permanent?”

Eddy looks up from his phone, surprised. “Well, a little,” he admits. “It’s fun and your channel’s growing enough that this could be full-time, but I have to work.” He sounds a little defeated as he says it; he dreads the day he’ll have to go back to the lab and start giving lectures and going to conferences again.

“Why?”

“Well,” says Eddy. “My parents would be pissed if I quit. They keep on telling me ‘I told you so’ about this whole career thing, and I can’t let my co-workers down. And it’s not _that_ bad,” he adds.

Brett eyes him suspiciously, but doesn’t comment on it. Not yet, at least. “And if you had the opportunity, would you make YouTube a full-time thing with me?”

“Yeah, probably, but my family—”

Brett shakes his head. “Eddy, it’s not about your family. I can tell you’re not doing something you love and frankly, touring and teaching isn’t my thing either. It’s too much pressure and stress for the both of us. You have money and prestige now. Why can’t you make a decision for yourself and think for yourself first before you think of your parents, who forced you into this bullshit anyways?”

Eddy is frowning now. He thinks that Brett is probably right, but he’s given up a career he would have loved for science now, and he can’t afford to stop here or stop now. It would be a waste of his entire career and education, and his family... “I can’t do this, dude.”

“You can’t let others dictate your life for you, Eddy.” Brett is staring at him from across the kitchen table solemnly. “You’ve let people tell you what to do for your entire life. I saw you after that fight with your mum, remember? You looked so defeated, man. You can’t just do that.”

Eddy slams a hand down on the table, feeling the rising hot anger from within. “You don’t understand!” he shouts. “I gave up everything because Belle had already disappointed the family and I couldn’t be the second kid to do that to them! You had a little brother your parents could rely on but I didn’t—I had to do it for my parents!”

Brett doesn’t budge. “I’m telling you, Eddy,” he says slowly, calmly, like Eddy hasn’t lost his temper at all, “that you need to take control of your own future. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in a lab or an office. I can see that, I’m not blind.”

Edward Chen is many things; he is a musician, a doctor, and a scientist, and he prides himself on his success, but most of all he values logic and reasoning and likes to think with his head before his heart. And when both his head and heart are screaming at him that Brett’s right, well, what can he do except admit that he’s wrong?

* * *

Brett changes the channel name to TwoSetViolin, but Eddy would rather see it as 2SetViolin; it’s a question he guesses they’ll have to answer later. For now, there are more pressing matters. The fans love that Eddy and Brett are now both working together on the channel officially and are demanding a comedy show tour, Brett wants to start a merch line, Eddy has his doubts. “I’m not a professionally trained musician,” he says. “They won’t respect me as much as they do you.”

Brett scoffs. “You literally won a Nobel Prize. You’re studying with the great Brett Yang as his only full-time private student. I think that’s more than enough qualification, isn’t it?”

Eddy can’t really argue with that.

They make plans and hire an editor and a staff team. Brett tells his agent-slash-manager that he’s going to be doing something _different_ now, and Eddy calls up his office to tell them he’s going to be working on-and-off after his six-month break is over. The channel is blowing up, Brett’s five hundred thousand subscribers having skyrocketed to nearly a million in four months. Eddy and Brett’s parents are both a little bit more than unhappy, especially Eddy’s mum, but he tells her politely that she’s controlled his life for long enough so would she let him have some freedom now or get out of his life please? and she listens, because she doesn’t really have a choice.

“We’ll start in Sydney,” Brett says, “in the Opera House. Then Melbourne, maybe, then Asia and Europe and America. I’ve always wanted to visit San Francisco. Never been there before. I guess the first time will have to be on the TwoSet World Tour.”

“TwoSetViolin.” Eddy tries the name on his tongue. 2Set seems a bit less appealing now. “And we’ll be doing the world’s first classical music comedy show tour, whatever you want to call it.”

“Yeah,” says Brett. “Me and you, we’ll travel the world, and we’ll do it together. Just like old times.”

Eddy smiles, happy like he hasn’t been in a long time -- the world is his for the taken and he refuses to give in like he has for years and years, walking the path that his parents set for him before he was even born.

His future is his own now.

“A new chapter in my life,” he says. “You and me. I’m glad we met again.”

And they’ll travel the world and meet their fans from all corners of the Earth and it will fill them with pride and joy unlike the Queen Elisabeth or the Tchaikovsky or the Nobel Prize ever has. One day, Eddy will finish his memoir; it will be a story of passion and finding his true purpose, of staying true to himself and remaining undefeated against all odds, head bloody but unbowed. They’ll settle down somewhere, together, in between concerts and conferences and Eddy still stops by the lab when he can, but he’s a musician now and that’s who he is. Brett still gives masterclasses and performs with orchestras sometimes, and they’ll learn to balance their former careers with TwoSet and let their dreams become reality.

We leave them now—let their story unfold on its own, in this world where they grew apart before their paths crossed again, where they learn to take control of their own destinies and not blindly follow the paths set for them; may they, at last, find happiness together.

**Author's Note:**

> hey, thanks for reading! this was just a little idea i had in my head, and since i had some free time i decided to write it all out. i'm no experienced writer and this is probably my 2nd written work ever, so feel free to throw constructive criticism at me. i haven't edited this, just wrote it and posted, so i'll probably make some edits later when i have the time. as for whether brett and eddy are platonic or romantic... well, that's up to your interpretation :)
> 
> leave a kudos and a comment if you enjoyed! (keeps the writing fuel going)


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